


rest (you'll be happy)

by bisexualtrash



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angsty Schmoop, Eren Yeager Sees The Ocean, Gen, I AM YOUR DRIVER, I CANNOT DRIVE, What Have I Done, Why Did I Write This?, its all a mess, what even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualtrash/pseuds/bisexualtrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sadness does a lot to you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rest (you'll be happy)

**Author's Note:**

> i have 0 grammar skills so enjoy.  
> Um this whole thing is a mess.  
> Whatever.

Everyone felt.

Of course it wasn’t everyday you would see someone _truly_ happy. It would probably hold up for a hefty price in the black market; nothing more than a trinket you could’ve kept safe on the top shelf of your cabinet, a display of your fortune. You would tiptoe around it, careful not to break the fragile thing. Strong emotions were hard to come by those days; happiness and sadness were the rarest of all out there. The latter was the worst. Nobody wanted it, not even for free.

The brunette, blonde and noirette had their fair share of emotions, a tragic fate bestowed upon them.

Eren once had anger, flickering, scalding and red.

Eren received sadness when he was 12. It hid inside anger as the pair of emotions temporarily worked hand in hand, wired in the boy’s brain. In moments it became too heavy and shattered anger and revealed the blue cesspool of despair inside. His mother’s happiness shattered before him, blood droplets covered the shards. Eren was sad.

Armin once had curiosity, glowing, tickling and yellow.

Armin received sadness when he was 6. It embedded itself inside curiosity and slowly wrapped around the deep confines of the never ending trail of questions and answers, when the blonde realised sometimes you shouldn’t ask so many questions because one day the answer won’t be what you’re looking for. Sadness first blossomed when Armin asked where his parents were and continued to dissolve curiosity. Armin was sad.

Mikasa once had pride, beaming, warm and orange.

Mikasa received sadness when she was 9. It invaded pride too soon, left her alone as she held her own chin up and hid her fears, just like her mother taught her. Her mother’s last words scrambled through the air which immediately provoked sadness. It made a large crack in her pride but she still kept it, but held it in such a way so that she was the only one to look at the flaw itself, the only one who knew it was just an empty shell. Mikasa was sad.

The trio had tried to sell their sadness, to wash it away with alcohol and water and blood, to paint over it with red and yellow and orange and to break it with all of their perseverance and intelligence and strength. Nothing worked.

Shouldn’t they have been happy that they won the war? They were the heroes of their time, the green growth of humanity fluttered on their capes and the silver linings on dark clouds that shone on their blades inaccurately displayed their innermost thoughts.

They received cheers and handshakes from strangers who had once spat and turned their backs on them, what a humanity to have saved. The celebration provided them with false comfort. Was that what their victory deserved, a glorification of young people who were trained to kill things that were previously human, just like them? Did they need to celebrate something that mentally and physically damaged them beyond repair?

If only they knew what raced around every soldier’s mind, the circumstances would be different. Fear, anxiety, envy, regret and guilt were all little presents the war had left the loyal soldiers. How kind.

Apart from that, they all had really good memories by the end of the war.

The memories of fallen children alike them scattered like fresh daisies, their limbs the fragile petals that barely clung on to the already weak bodies. Blood droplets sprinkled like morning dew on the miniscule, insignificant weeds while the sounds of the 3DM gear sounded unmistakably like the buzz of a bee.

They were all little innocent daisies; but if you looked closer, they all had different heights, amounts of petals and the colouring would vary between the gradients of purple and white or just plain white. Some daisies survived until winter; some survived for days. Some daisies were stepped on; some were untouched, untainted. But in the end they were all the same and returned to the Earth when their time was over and wilted.

Every field they looked at just made them sad. Every field they looked at always had daisies. Maybe that was why they liked the winter, for no daisy was strong enough to cope with the harsh blue season, the rain the sky’s tears that mourned for the deceased flowers and drowned the Earth in an annual, long-term grief. Sadness was usually strong in those months, the lack of sun allowed them to stay out in the long nights to accompany nightmares, the perfect pair. Those were the times sorrow increasingly pulsed through their blue veins; the blood ran dry years ago.

What was their sacrifice?

Their contribution to the fight was their whole life; they had nothing else to live for. The moment they got their freedom, there was nothing left to free. The cage was empty. Barren vessels to a small sliver of blue were all that remained in those three young daisies. Their petals had fallen off, they had been deprived of the sun and the soil was dry. The way you behaved depended on the environment you grew up in.

So they left the walls without a word, to make a new life, a last minute effort to change. They wandered off aimlessly and became estranged from their roots. There was only so much time a daisy had before it wilted once its ties with its home were severed.   

They may have survived the war; but they were already dead long before that.

The first and last stop they made was the ocean, away from green fields, like the capes they were adorned in the heat of battle, with copious amounts of daisies. Green alike the envy Jean Kirshtein once had.

They set their horses free and threw their boots, cape and straps carelessly on the beach.

They didn’t like the ocean as much as they hoped. It was blue, not teal. It was a sad colour that bordered on grey. Grey like walls, grey like faces and grey like clouds. Grey like the fear Sasha Braus once had. Furthermore, it never stayed still enough for them to appreciate; the choppy waves reminded them of the motion of horse-riding. The sand got everywhere and the sun was too bright, too cheerful. It was cold but no one complained.

They weren’t satisfied but they were tired so the only choice they had was to _stay_.

Eren hadn’t bitten his hand in a long time; but found it drawn towards his mouth, his instincts kicked in as they reacted to the sound of waves, mistaken for the roars of titans. He frowned as he put down his hand and inhaled the salty air; a change from the metallic scent of blood.

Armin wondered if his parents ever saw the ocean. Did they ask as many questions as he did once? His hands constantly hovered over his hips, where his blades once lay comfortably. He frowned and internally scolded himself before he placed his hands in his pockets, an unnatural position for the blonde.  

Mikasa often looked up behind them, shoulders tensed, a habit she had picked up from years of paranoia. She traced her finger across the scar underneath her cheek and buried her head deeper into the scarlet scarf, the wool tickled her mouth.

They lay on the gritty, beige sand until the stars revealed their positions in the pitch black abyss. A sea of stars was prettier than the actual sea, they thought. It looked happy.

Sadness cracked the moment the brunette, blonde and noirette fell into a deep slumber to make up for all of their restless nights, with the stars and the calm waves the last lullaby they heard. A sprinkle of pale yellow and white tip-toed around, jumping, skipping and soft; for that was happiness. Remnants of blue-grey misery washed and dissolved in the sea. For once, they were free.

It was sad that they spent so much of their lives trying to relieve themselves of melancholy that it was the last thing they did. After all, happiness was something valuable and that was what they had lived for. If only their parents had seen how much their children had grown and worked to death.

Maybe it was for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> A scatter of daises grew along where the sand and the grass met that following spring.


End file.
